“What happened to Kesey? Did you bore him to death and get a pass? No one beats Kesey in the octagon, Irving. Not you, not me, no one. So what happened, did you have a scheduling conflict? That’s the pansy-boy way out. Are you too busy to get your butt kicked?”

“I’m glad you weren’t, Ernest. What’s that noise I hear in the background? Are you still tapping out?”

“You got lucky, punk. I want a rematch.”

“After Melville, I’m avoiding any more beards. You’ll have to shave before I get back in there with you. And maybe stop complaining when you get beat fair and square.”

“You’re still upset about the thumb talk?”

“I didn’t thumb you in the throat, so stop saying it. I might next time, though.”

“Take a guess. I’m the one who said “A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.” You sound as dense as oak.”

“Almost as dense as the guy who said, “There is something wrong about the man who wants help. There is somewhere a deep defect, a want, in brief, a need, a crying need, somewhere about that man.” That’s you, Melville, a crying need.”

“Make fun if you must. Laugh at the customs inspector with the 16,000 line poem. Poke fun, but remember I’m the one with the extinct whale named after him, not you. Livyatan melvillei lives no longer on the menu, but in our hearts and paleontology.”

John Irving switched the phone to his other ear.

“That’s good and fine, Herman. May I call you Herman? Listen, Herm, here’s what’s going to happen. I know Hemingway put you up to this. I mean I want the fight; after you I can hang the two biggest names in literary fish on my wall. But I don’t know.”

“You’ll not weasel out, lad. Hem said you might try. ‘To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it.’ Whose career does that remind you of, Fluffy?”

“Fluffy?”

“I’ve seen pictures of your hair,” Melville said.

“It’s never been fluffy.”

“There’s a lot of it.”

“Like your beard. Get off my hair. I’m not weaseling out. Did the Hemmer tell you how his match went? I”ll help him out, it went bad. I’m a wrestler, not some Roaring Twenties duker punching out Princeton frat boys in straight legs. At least Hemingway had a clue. He knew how to fight, he just didn’t understand the rules.”

“You’ll not lecture me, my good man, until after I send you to the briny deep of the octagon.”

“Okay, Captain Ahab. This is what you can expect. We walk out and touch gloves. You can do that, right? What else can you do? What are you bringing from the 1840’s? That’s before the Civil War, so fighting in your prime was even more civil? We touch gloves and stand back. It’s a respect thing. Then I’m opening up on your face in a quick combination. I’ll stand back then fake another combination. But instead I’ll do an inside trip. Did you drill that a lot back in the 1850’s? The inside trip sits you right down, so I scramble up to a cross-chest or head lock, and rain punches down on your face until the referee stops the fight.”

After a long pause, “I see. And this behavior is allowed in the rules?”

“This is the game. If you want to be a part of it, okay. At least you know what to expect. And really, Herman, I like you. I like your work. I feel bad about how your work never gave any reward back to you, but it happens.”

“I performed at my best.”

“Let’s be honest. You’ve heard the rumors. You turned into a drunk, a wife beater, a regular lunatic your wife’s family would have signed into an insane asylum.”

“And I would have gladly gone. Point well taken. Back to our fight. If art is the objectification of feeling, and we share a feeling of friendship, then what would the beating you promise in the octagon be?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Herm. I feel bad about Hemingway, though he was better than I thought he’d be. Kesey and I talked it out. He would have destroyed me. You and I can talk it out. I just want to be fair with you.”

“Why do that? Nothing else has been fair. I write one the great books in world literary history and make zilch. I crank out more books and get the cold shoulder. Even after the war the public looked at me with a blind eye.”